4 ms·

The rumors I've heard tie this to activity spurred by changes in yuan valuation. Does anyone know of a site that visualizes information that could add informat

The rumors I've heard tie this to activity spurred by changes in yuan valuation. Does anyone know of a site that visualizes information that could add information to that hypothesis? I'm thinking something like trading volumes per geographical area. I'm also curious what role bitcoin could play in mitigating currency risk. Are people using it to buy foreign currencies and keep them in secret bank accounts? Are they attempting to use Bitcoin as a store of value?

curiousgal 10y ago
>trading volumes per geographical area. https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/#markets https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/#markets Sort by volume. It's not as accurate as you requested but it's close enough.
xyzzy4 10y ago
Bitcoin is very useful for three things, which are a store of value similar to gold (although it is more volatile), money remittance to other countries, and illegal or anonymous activities. I don't know how many people are using it for each, though. Also as a side note it's typically very difficult to make bank accounts in other countries if you are not a resident.
- automatwon 10y ago
  I worked in data science at a tech startup that focused on remittance ($1 billion ARR). I was also offered a position at an early stage bitcoin startup in Vietnam, one of the top 'send countries' for remittance from the U.S. This is the first and primary Bitcoin service provider in Vietnam. Bitcoin is not ideal for remittance in practice. Speed: If you use your own wallet, waiting for the blockchain to propagate might actually be slower than currency through a remittance company. I don't know what the clearing process is for Bitcoin wallets SaaS, but Bitcoin is equal to if not slower than normal remittance tech startups. After all, speed is one of the factors these remittance startups are tackling to disrupt Western Union. Rate: I can't speak universally, but doing remittance in or out of Vietnam with Bitcoin was too high last year. ~5% if we go USD -> BTC -> VND. ~10% in the reverse. These rates are indicative of the local currency being worthless. I also remember transferring Bitcoin internally in the U.S. last year through SaaS would eat out half a percentage. Foreign workers who remit to their loved ones are price sensitive. That leaves Bitcoin as remittance viable to people who aren't price sensitive, at the asset of more anonymity. IMO, dirty money is not price sensitive. 10% fee to launder money is cheap. If you're already going down this road though, Vietnam mom and pop shops offer practically free remittance. They are unlikely to be regulated. And again, local Vietnam currency is useless. It's not stable or a good store of value. The government sets artificial exchange rates. People in Vietnam desperately want to exchange their money for USD, and are willing to pay a premium, which is still better than the governments rate, and so the remittance shop is able to offer people sending USD to Vietnam a free service. A Bitcoin provider will have to exchange to and from the local currency if it's to be used for remittance. In the case of Vietnam, the exchange must exchange Bitcoin for the more worthless local currency, and hence charge the higher exchange rate. The provider in Vietnam has an underlying market exchange, actually, where there is no liquidity because people with Bitcoin expect a huge premium to exchange it for local currency. I think Vietnam's situation can be generalized to other remittance countries where the local currency is undesired, and the government has locked down people exchanging it for USD.
- automatwon 10y ago
  I worked in data science at a tech startup that focused on remittance ($1 billion ARR). I was also offered a position at an early stage bitcoin startup in Vietnam, one of the top 'send countries' for remittance from the U.S. This is the first and primary Bitcoin service provider in Vietnam. Bitcoin is not ideal for remittance in practice. Speed: If you use your own wallet, waiting for the blockchain to propagate might actually be slower than currency through a remittance company. I don't know what the clearing process is for Bitcoin wallets SaaS, but Bitcoin is equal to if not slower than normal remittance tech startups. After all, speed is one of the factors these remittance startups are tackling to disrupt Western Union. Rate: I can't speak universally, but doing remittance in or out of Vietnam with Bitcoin was too high last year. ~5% if we go USD -> BTC -> VND. ~10% in the reverse. These rates are indicative of the local currency being worthless. I also remember transferring Bitcoin internally in the U.S. last year through SaaS would eat out half a percentage. Foreign workers who remit to their loved ones are price sensitive. That leaves Bitcoin as remittance viable to people who aren't price sensitive, at the asset of more anonymity. IMO, dirty money is not price sensitive. 10% fee to launder money is cheap. If you're already going down this road though, Vietnam mom and pop shops offer practically free remittance. They are unlikely to be regulated. And again, local Vietnam currency is useless. It's not stable or a good store of value. The government sets artificial exchange rates. People in Vietnam desperately want to exchange their money for USD, and are willing to pay a premium, which is still better than the governments rate, and so the remittance shop is able to offer people sending USD to Vietnam a free service. A Bitcoin provider will have to exchange to and from the local currency if it's to be used for remittance. In the case of Vietnam, the exchange must exchange Bitcoin for the more worthless local currency, and hence charge the higher exchange rate. The provider in Vietnam has an underlying market exchange, actually, where there is no liquidity because people with Bitcoin expect a huge premium to exchange it for local currency. I think Vietnam's situation can be generalized to other remittance countries where the local currency is undesired, and the government has locked down people exchanging it for USD.
the_rosentotter 10y ago
The chart in this article (Washington Post two days ago) shows the correlation between bitcoin price and yuan devaluation (scroll to the middle of the article): https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/01/03/why-bitcoin-just-had-an-amazing-year/?utm_term=.7c83f52f2679 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/01/03/why-b... (Not a very strong correlation, in my opinion. Note the short arbitrary time period chosen.)
DesiLurker 10y ago
perhaps also something to do with indian demonetization of large currency bills.
nullc 10y ago
> I'm thinking something like trading volumes per geographical area. There are a number of exchanges in China with zero cost trades, which distorts volume figures.
momentmaker 10y ago
This site tracks live where in the world people are buying Bitcoins from. http://fiatleak.com/ http://fiatleak.com/ Most of the volumes do come from China.
- dwaltrip 10y ago
  You have to be careful. Most people believe the volume numbers reported by Chinese exchanges are heavily inflated. Edit: I was incorrect. See below, it seems this doesn't apply for this website as they aren't using volume data from exchanges.
  - facepalm 10y ago
    I would expect the data to be from the blockchain and GeoIP of node from which the transaction originated? Of course still not 100% reliable, as theoretically people could use any node, but still interesting.
    - dwaltrip 10y ago
      Oh, hmm, that makes sense. It's looking at IPs of actual transactions, not off-chain trading volumes. Thanks for clarifying, I'll update my comment.

curiousgal 10y ago

>trading volumes per geographical area. https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/#markets https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/#markets Sort by volume. It's not as accurate as you requested but it's close enough.

xyzzy4 10y ago

Bitcoin is very useful for three things, which are a store of value similar to gold (although it is more volatile), money remittance to other countries, and illegal or anonymous activities. I don't know how many people are using it for each, though. Also as a side note it's typically very difficult to make bank accounts in other countries if you are not a resident.

automatwon 10y ago
I worked in data science at a tech startup that focused on remittance ($1 billion ARR). I was also offered a position at an early stage bitcoin startup in Vietnam, one of the top 'send countries' for remittance from the U.S. This is the first and primary Bitcoin service provider in Vietnam. Bitcoin is not ideal for remittance in practice. Speed: If you use your own wallet, waiting for the blockchain to propagate might actually be slower than currency through a remittance company. I don't know what the clearing process is for Bitcoin wallets SaaS, but Bitcoin is equal to if not slower than normal remittance tech startups. After all, speed is one of the factors these remittance startups are tackling to disrupt Western Union. Rate: I can't speak universally, but doing remittance in or out of Vietnam with Bitcoin was too high last year. ~5% if we go USD -> BTC -> VND. ~10% in the reverse. These rates are indicative of the local currency being worthless. I also remember transferring Bitcoin internally in the U.S. last year through SaaS would eat out half a percentage. Foreign workers who remit to their loved ones are price sensitive. That leaves Bitcoin as remittance viable to people who aren't price sensitive, at the asset of more anonymity. IMO, dirty money is not price sensitive. 10% fee to launder money is cheap. If you're already going down this road though, Vietnam mom and pop shops offer practically free remittance. They are unlikely to be regulated. And again, local Vietnam currency is useless. It's not stable or a good store of value. The government sets artificial exchange rates. People in Vietnam desperately want to exchange their money for USD, and are willing to pay a premium, which is still better than the governments rate, and so the remittance shop is able to offer people sending USD to Vietnam a free service. A Bitcoin provider will have to exchange to and from the local currency if it's to be used for remittance. In the case of Vietnam, the exchange must exchange Bitcoin for the more worthless local currency, and hence charge the higher exchange rate. The provider in Vietnam has an underlying market exchange, actually, where there is no liquidity because people with Bitcoin expect a huge premium to exchange it for local currency. I think Vietnam's situation can be generalized to other remittance countries where the local currency is undesired, and the government has locked down people exchanging it for USD.
automatwon 10y ago
I worked in data science at a tech startup that focused on remittance ($1 billion ARR). I was also offered a position at an early stage bitcoin startup in Vietnam, one of the top 'send countries' for remittance from the U.S. This is the first and primary Bitcoin service provider in Vietnam. Bitcoin is not ideal for remittance in practice. Speed: If you use your own wallet, waiting for the blockchain to propagate might actually be slower than currency through a remittance company. I don't know what the clearing process is for Bitcoin wallets SaaS, but Bitcoin is equal to if not slower than normal remittance tech startups. After all, speed is one of the factors these remittance startups are tackling to disrupt Western Union. Rate: I can't speak universally, but doing remittance in or out of Vietnam with Bitcoin was too high last year. ~5% if we go USD -> BTC -> VND. ~10% in the reverse. These rates are indicative of the local currency being worthless. I also remember transferring Bitcoin internally in the U.S. last year through SaaS would eat out half a percentage. Foreign workers who remit to their loved ones are price sensitive. That leaves Bitcoin as remittance viable to people who aren't price sensitive, at the asset of more anonymity. IMO, dirty money is not price sensitive. 10% fee to launder money is cheap. If you're already going down this road though, Vietnam mom and pop shops offer practically free remittance. They are unlikely to be regulated. And again, local Vietnam currency is useless. It's not stable or a good store of value. The government sets artificial exchange rates. People in Vietnam desperately want to exchange their money for USD, and are willing to pay a premium, which is still better than the governments rate, and so the remittance shop is able to offer people sending USD to Vietnam a free service. A Bitcoin provider will have to exchange to and from the local currency if it's to be used for remittance. In the case of Vietnam, the exchange must exchange Bitcoin for the more worthless local currency, and hence charge the higher exchange rate. The provider in Vietnam has an underlying market exchange, actually, where there is no liquidity because people with Bitcoin expect a huge premium to exchange it for local currency. I think Vietnam's situation can be generalized to other remittance countries where the local currency is undesired, and the government has locked down people exchanging it for USD.

the_rosentotter 10y ago

The chart in this article (Washington Post two days ago) shows the correlation between bitcoin price and yuan devaluation (scroll to the middle of the article): https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/01/03/why-bitcoin-just-had-an-amazing-year/?utm_term=.7c83f52f2679 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/01/03/why-b... (Not a very strong correlation, in my opinion. Note the short arbitrary time period chosen.)

DesiLurker 10y ago

perhaps also something to do with indian demonetization of large currency bills.

nullc 10y ago

> I'm thinking something like trading volumes per geographical area. There are a number of exchanges in China with zero cost trades, which distorts volume figures.

momentmaker 10y ago

This site tracks live where in the world people are buying Bitcoins from. http://fiatleak.com/ http://fiatleak.com/ Most of the volumes do come from China.

dwaltrip 10y ago
You have to be careful. Most people believe the volume numbers reported by Chinese exchanges are heavily inflated. Edit: I was incorrect. See below, it seems this doesn't apply for this website as they aren't using volume data from exchanges.
- facepalm 10y ago
  I would expect the data to be from the blockchain and GeoIP of node from which the transaction originated? Of course still not 100% reliable, as theoretically people could use any node, but still interesting.
  - dwaltrip 10y ago
    Oh, hmm, that makes sense. It's looking at IPs of actual transactions, not off-chain trading volumes. Thanks for clarifying, I'll update my comment.